Welcome to another blog writing from me based on a quote from a book. Today's writing will be from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and the quote says:
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
This book has been quite popular, with a lot of recommendations online and good reviews on the book. The entire idea of the book was grabbed into the concept of the quote which focuses on empathy. The novel centers on the notion that you cannot truly understand what another person is going through at the moment without first seeing things from their point of view or at least until you place yourself in their position. Honestly, it is way easier to judge and pass on your opinion on another person's actions when you are not affected. Then when fortune change hands, you might be the one looking for some form of leniency.
The novel is centered on the coming to realization by a young girl about the hatred, injustice and prejudice that exist in her community. Her name is Scout Finch and she grows up in a community called Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Her father, Atticus Finch is a lawyer and the legal representation for a black man called Tom Robinson who is falsely accused of killing a white woman. Now, bear in mind that during this period, being accused of such a crime is quite serious because of the strong racial segregation in existence at the time. Nothing will prepare you for how damaging and life changing such accusation can be. It is no longer about proving your innocence that is at stake but you are fighting a system that was set up against you. The thing with accusations like this is that they come with strong threats. More like the threat is worse that the execution, so even before you get to be proven guilty, you already suffering from the precautions of actually being guilty.
The author does a good job in creating a deeper understanding and showing us how our misconstrued opinions about people can be, whereby we pass judgement even before knowing the person. We see a character with a tough outer layer but only to find out they are actually kind and soft while those who are well respected have a couple of skeleton in their cupboard. The genesis of the quote comes from Atticus to Scout, where he tells her about entering one's skin inorder to understand what they are going through. Although it exaggerative but the message lies there and that is the need to understand the other person has to come from first putting yourself in their position.
The true power of the book is the fact that we see things from the len of a young girl, how she navigates the world into understanding the level of hatred, prejudice and worst of them all, injustice that looms in her small town. A strong feature with this novel is that the author designs the story so well in such a way that we grow as the young girl Scout grows. As she learns so do we and when she comes to the realization that this person is not all bad the way society has painted them out to be, we the readers realize that as well. Truly we need to be in the other person's shoes to understand what they are going through.
I am 
♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟
Thanks For Reading!
